The Sera Monastery

Text From Lonely Planet Tibet, page 177:

Sera Monastery, around 5km north of central Lhasa, was along with Drepung on e of Lhasa's two great Gelugpa monasteries.  Its once huge monastic population of around 5000 monks has no been reduced to several hundred.

History

Sera was founded in 1419 by Sakya Yeshe, a disciple of Tsongkhapa also known by the honorific title Jamchen Chöje.  In its heydey, Sera hosted a huge monastic population and five colleges of instruction, but at the time of the Chinese invasion in 1959 the colleges numbered 3.  Like Drepung, the colleges of Sera specialized: Sera Me in the fundamental precepts of Buddhism; Sera Je in the instruction of itinerant monks from outside central Tibet; and Sear Ngagpa in Tantric studies.

Sera survived the ravages of the Cultural Revolution with little damage, although many of the colleges were destroyed.